Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

We received an interesting e-mail from one of the European offices looking after consumer affairs last night.

They’re writing on behalf of a Spanish couple who booked with us last July but who didn’t turn up.

Ordinarly, that would mean we’d have billed them as a no-show but at the time the booking system had a technical problem so we weren’t receiving their reservation e-mails and therefore didn’t know that they were coming. Anyway, net effect was that we didn’t charge them although under the terms of the reservation system we were entitled to.

They’ve gone to this European office with their booking confirmation that has a note of the two nights booked and EUR 98 charge. Except, that it isn’t a change: it’s just a note of what they would have to pay.

The Spanish guy in the European office doesn’t understand that at all. They quoted their credit card number and they’ve a statement with EUR 98 on it, they didn’t get their accommodation (because they went to the wrong place) but he believes that they’ve paid it as do they.

Usually the Spanish are much more Internet-savvy than the French but in this area they’re just as far behind in that they assume that they’ve paid when they quote a credit card number yet it’s only used for a guarantee.

I suspect that it’ll run for a bit as he sent another e-mail this morning threatening to translate everything and sent it to the French consumer protection authorities to demand the refund of this EUR 98 which they’ve not paid.

There seems to be something of a drift from issuing Visa cards to issuing Mastercards in the UK at the moment thereby reversing the previous trend which was to only issue Visa cards.

Although it doesn’t really matter which you have in the UK, it can matter a lot when you go on holiday and generally it’s best to be carrying both Visa and Mastercard abroad. In that respect the switch of my Halifax Visa card to a Mastercard suits me as that gives me a Mastercard credit card from them and a Visa debit card but others could easily find themselves with a Maestro card and a Mastercard which isn’t a good combination as Maestro isn’t nearly as useful as Visa debit and you’re left with two cards on the same system which isn’t good either.

Not a catastrophe for sure but do make sure that you have both varieties of card handy well in advance of your next holiday.

We’ve got our Danish group back again this evening.

It’s an interesting aspect of the development of our bookings that we are starting to get picked out by tour groups this year. This’ll be the fifth time that the Danish tour leader will have been here on one of her New Age tours taking in this region. It seems to be quite a popular area for that type of tour, this particular one having a Mary Magdelene theme.

Anyway, that’ll keep us pretty busy this evening as they want meals through to lunchtime tomorrow.

One of the most surprising thing about the Internet is just how much people are prepared to pay for information from one site that is available free on another site.

This is probably best illustrated by the vast number of websites which sell you the information that you need to open an account in America when you don’t live there. I say “America” simply because that’s the most popular but there are many other sites offering to open accounts in Switzerland (the second most popular) and various countries around the world.

Now, I’ll grant you that it’s more difficult to come by the information for Switzerland unless you know where to look but I’d be wanting to do a whole lot of looking before I forked out the typical $250 to $1000 that some websites charge for this information. I’ll be covering this (free!) very shortly on the expat banking section of Whole Earth so, unless you need your Swiss account in the next couple of weeks, it’s probably best to hold on to your $250 ’til I get back from my research trip next week.

What about America though? Would you pay $100 or more for the information? Many people appear to yet it’s freely available on the expat banking section of Whole Earth already although, to be fair, many others seem to have been getting it there for free for quite a while if the site stats are anything to go by.

The thing that gets me is that, in most cases, the information isn’t difficult to find. What’s worse though, particularly for Switzerland, is that a number of the charging websites are providing information that simply won’t work as they typically recommend opening an account with SwissPost which stopped opening accounts for non-residents a few years ago.

I’m quite tempted to start selling the information on ebay myself!

Of the hundreds of people who have stayed with us over the course of this year, only two or three have paid using the Nationwide credit card which is crazy as they’re the only place that doesn’t charge to use your cards overseas.

Perhaps more crazy though is that of the dozen or so couples who live in Spain and have used us as a pitstop on their way to/from the UK, only one used a Nationwide card as they’re spending quite a considerable chunk of their income on bank charges. Quite how much is staggering. For example, a friend who lives in Brussels let drop once that he just used his Halifax card in the same way that he had done when living in the UK ie he would lift £20 or £30 each time he needed some money and likewise when he was paying for the groceries or whatever.

Most people read the bit in the credit/debit card charging information that says “currency exchange 2.75%” and figure that he wouldn’t have run up much of a bill. However, there is a transaction charge on all overseas use of the card of, at that time, £2 (and I gather it’s now £3) PLUS the 2.75% foreign exchange charge. So, that £20 cost him £2.55 ie 12.75% and, yes, he was paying around 12% of his entire income each month on bank charges!!

Clearly it’s quite different if you’re living abroad vs going on holiday but that minimum charge soon mounts up if you lift small amounts of cash. Whilst it’s much better to use the Nationwide card and pay nothing, if you are using a fee charging card you should lift a minimum of £100 or so each time and thereby reduce your costs to 4.25% to 4.75% depending on your bank and, whenever possible, use your credit card for purchases rather than making cash withdrawals.

See our guide at holiday money for more information.